David W. Zierk, PsyD

Parenting is a creative and curious endeavor.

Whether planned or unexpected, the decision to have children requires thoughtfulness and an appreciation for present-day circumstances while looking into the future. It's a journey that surprises everyone, even when you think you have it all figured out.

Accordingly, deciding to have children and parenting them have much in common. Attention to overall conditions while knowing the past, managing the present, and forecasting the future combine to inform how you parent. Then again, there are those times when we just wing it.

Parenting is a Verb and Takes Effort

Nobody is prepared to be a parent, let alone know the ins and outs of parenting. As your child grows, so do parental responsibilities. It’s common to question whether you’re cut out for parenting over the long haul. What your child does and how they do it can challenge your integrity and ingenuity, leaving you feeling deskilled. “How is it,” you may whisper to yourself, “something I created has so much control over me?” As days become weeks and your child’s years add up, being overwhelmed and bone-tired is too often the rule, not the exception. Then yet another reality hits when you realize there are not enough hours in the day.

So, you may wonder, “While my child is growing, am I?”

As you step into the parent role, you develop a parenting style over time and events. In your dreams, you want to be the parent who keeps her cool under fire or knows what to say to soothe your child’s tortured soul. However, with your eyes wide open, what you do and say may be a far cry from the image of the ideal parent you hold in your thoughts and dreams.

If wishing made it so, we’d all be amazing parents.

What is Your Parenting Reputation?

Parenting reputation is how others perceive and experience you. Your reputation enters the room well before the rest of you show up. Knowing this tidbit gives you an advantage. Remembering your parenting reputation will keep you on track while focusing on and investing in mutuality. If your reputation needs a bit of polish, this is accomplished by doing things that reflect your true self. Instead of being defensive, be curious. Replace straight-at-you opinions with round-a-bout suggestions. After you do something, ask yourself, “Am I proud of what I did and how I did it?” When the answer is a resounding “yes,” congratulations, you’re moving in the right direction. Keep going! If your inner dialogue is not so friendly, we can help. Remember that doing things alone is the fastest way to make your life harder than it needs to be.

A big part of knowing “how to” optimize your parenting requires understanding what you’re doing now that works and doesn’t. Curiously, discovering the answer to this query and tapping into your true potential may be right before you, staring you in the face from morning to nightfall.

What’s that? you ask.

Keep reading. A strikingly powerful tool for self-development and taking your parenting to the next level is right at your fingertips. It’s called asking for feedback. When you get a Mother’s Day card from your child, they give you feedback. When your child cries out, “I hate you!” you’re getting more feedback. Of course, some feedback requires skillful translation. This is accomplished by listening to the message while you tune out the words.

Feedback gives you what Paul Harvey, the much-missed legendary radio broadcaster, was famous for saying: “The rest of the story.” Here’s some trivia for those who don’t recognize the name Paul Harvey. He personalized radio news delightfully and emphatically with heart-warming stories of average Americans. Using his rhetorical style and one-of-a-kind delivery style, he famously championed rugged individualism and the fundamental decency of ordinary people. He’s missed but not soon forgotten.

Unfolding the difference between being a parent and parenting reveals “the rest of the story.”

Let me lead with an example. When you’re training to run a marathon, beyond buying shoes that fit perfectly and finding the one pair of shorts you can’t live without, your training is optimized when you adopt some form of feedback. Most importantly, in the world of running, this involves tracking time. As you log your times and stand back to examine the numbers, you appreciate your progress. Numbers don’t lie; you are faster today than when you started. This feedback brightens your smile and broadens your perspective. It also lets you give yourself a well-deserved pat on the back. Without feedback, your personal records would seem forever ago, but remember, data doesn’t lie. Your training times nowadays are leaps and bounds better than when you started three months ago. Thank feedback for your expanded mindset. Your relationship with running improves with feedback.

You’re probably thinking, “Sure, when it comes to running, feedback is helpful, but when it comes to parenting, well, feedback just sounds scary.”

Understand that receiving and implementing feedback improves your parenting rapidly. Beware, the process is tricky. It requires your willingness to ask for and receive comments, impressions, and opinions from those who know your parenting style better than anyone–your child.

By asking your children for feedback about your parenting and parenting style, you are sending the message that your partnership with them is of the utmost importance. However, just because you ask and they tell doesn’t make what they say profound and actionable. No, you are setting the example of being a person interested in personal and collaborative growth. By the way, congratulations; it takes tremendous courage and a willingness to be vulnerable.

Once you’ve received feedback, it’s recommended that you take this information under advisement—sit on it, ponder it, and extract the gold from it. Then, please report back to your child and tell them what you learned from their feedback and what you plan on doing with it. This is your chance to take the gist of your child’s comments and reframe them in a way that makes sense for you and them. Also, it is nice to ask your child to keep their eyes open to ensure you steadily grow as a parent and partner. By doing it this way, you're strengthening the parent-child partnership.

Do you see how feedback can be amazing when promoting parenting growth?

One more thing. Once you’ve modeled for your child a willingness to ask and receive feedback from them, it’s their turn. This is when parenting becomes fun. You say to your child, “I got to thinking about how much your feedback helped me. Can I give you some feedback?” Let the fun begin!

Summing Up and Moving On

Learning the art of Valuable Parenting is achieved by parenting with connection in mind. By keeping the connection between you and your child at the highest level, you will keep yourself on track from regressing and falling into the trap of becoming “just like your parents.” That’s right, it happens to all of us eventually.

Below, the concept of Valuable Parenting is blueprinted to help you optimize your parenting style by learning how to turn conflict into connection. The diagram highlights the process of Valuable Parenting by identifying important and intersecting aspects of this lifelong and life-changing journey.

If you want to purchase Dr. Zierk’s parenting manual entitled “Valuable Parenting: Parenting with Connection in Mind; Optimizing Parenting with Intentionality, Curiosity, and Flexibility,” contact our office at 303-290-8000 and ask for Carol.

Press the button below to learn more about how your mind works as described in Dr. Zierk’s book, Mind Rules: Who’s in Control, You or Your Mind?